New generation of eco-warriorsturns up heat on GM crops

A NEW breed of eco-warrior is challenging the big corporations by taking direct action, reports The Independent today.

The militant environmental group Genetix Snowball has drawn many of its members from the professional classes. They include teachers, solicitors and journalists.

The newspaper talks to Rowan Tilly, a 40-year-old furniture maker from East Sussex. Ms Tilly was among five Genetix Snowball protestors arrested at the weekend after ripping up about 200 Monsanto oilseed rape plants on a farm in Oxfordshire.

The Genetix Snowball campaign is non-violent and it openly admits what it is doing. It wants a five-year moratorium on the release of such crops into the environment pending further research and public consultation.

Genetically Modified (GM) plants have been torn up at almost 30 of 200 experimental sites around Britain so far this year. The multi-national companies behind the GM crops are fighting back by spending millions of pounds to persuade the public of the plants potential benefits.